


Green with Envy

by GibbousLunation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Romance, Team Bonding, Team as Family, a potted plant saves the day, adventures of plance (plant lance) and friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GibbousLunation/pseuds/GibbousLunation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Meet Plance, the newest blue paladin.’ Pidge held up that god damned plant to the camera, now with a wonderfully terrible picture Hunk had caught of him, mid-burp, taped to the pot. ‘He’s just like you but improved. Sitting around all day, doing nothing… Except Plance actually, yanno, creates oxygen instead of just using it all while talking about completely made up ‘great achievements’. Plus, Plance has not once yet tried and failed to hit on the princess which I personally think is a grand improvement.’</p><p>The fic based off of the bad AU prompt about the team replacing Lance with a potted plant while he's away on vacation, and a series of unfortunate late night video calls. Somehow Keith misses the joke, again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green with Envy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kright/gifts).



> So, on tumblr my friend and I came up with [this really terrible post](http://rooish.tumblr.com/post/147426741145/a-voltron-fic-where-lance-goes-on-a-trip-for-a), which got far too many notes if you ask me and also far too many requests for someone to write the actual fic for it. This is me, spending a ridiculous amount of time attempting to make that request a reality and getting far too attached to a fictional plant in the process. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it!

Relaxation was everyone’s first priority, no doubt. The Galran Empire was (mostly) out of commission, Pidge’s family returned safely and everything fell neatly back into place. The universe, of course, still needed its heroes however. Once the word had gotten out that Voltron had returned, bigger and better than ever, assholes tended to crop up out of the woodwork just for fun.

After the smoke and dust had settled from their most harrowing (and badass) battle yet, Lance’s first priority was to let his family know what the hell was going on. They’d been away from earth for almost an entire year with no emails, no calls, no postcards from the middle of space featuring abnormally sized potatoes and a friendly ‘wish you were here!’

Needless to say, Lance’s mother hadn’t been pleased and had practically dragged him home for a week by his earlobe. Frankly, he was just glad to see her. And even more glad that the news her son was being hailed as a hero across the galaxy prevented her from bringing out la chancla.

Giant robot battles? No big deal, he handled those on a daily basis. His mother, worried and livid beyond the capability of speech? Galra hath no fury like it.

Long story short, Lance was currently bundled up in a large knitted sweater, squished between his to youngest siblings who wouldn’t stop asking him questions about what space was like, in between shoving their chubby fingers into any available orifice on his face, while being force fed ridiculous amounts of home cooked meals and attempting to watch an assortment of holovids on his phone. After months in space eating only strange gelatinous cubes with no earthen name, it was safe to say Lance was living in paradise.

Allura hadn’t been super happy with his half kidnapping, worried that with a paladin down and the rubble only just beginning to set from the fall of the Galran empire, trouble was bound to leap up at them. From their experience so far, she was very likely correct. But then Lance’s mother had taken over the video call and he’d been excused from the room, and he couldn’t say exactly what had happened only that Allura had primly walked into the dining hall that evening with a strained smile and wished him well during his vacation.

Galrans really should have looked into Angry Mother technology when they’d had the chance.

Of course, even lightyears away from Shiro and missions and food cubes didn’t mean that Team Voltron was taking a vacation. Translation being ‘Just Because You’re On Earth Lance Doesn’t Mean You Get To Skip Out on Team Bonding Exercises’. But, what was a crew to do without an actual Lance present to participate in said exercises?

Apparently video messages were the answer. Lots and lots of video messages.

(And possibly a fake house plant. Lance had inconclusive evidence to support the later theory, but there had been a suspicious amount of plant related selfies sent his way over the past few hours and he was getting slightly worried they were all going slightly stir crazy.)

Hunk’s videos were a little all over the place, but heartfelt as always. The first few felt a little more like diary entries than anything but, hey it was probably fine.

_‘Lance! Er… Blue Paladin… Man, I dunno how in the hell I’m supposed to start these, ugh. Oh well, anyways! Allura said that you aren’t allowed to skip out on our ‘bonding’ to keep our ‘team functioning’ so we’re supposed to keep contact with you as much as possible. Which isn’t really going to work because, yanno, you can only record and send a reply after you get our videos, and because of the relay there’s a delay between sending and receiving that lasts about… 4 hours but….’_

Hunk appeared to mull his own sentence over for a few moments, a voice that might have been Allura’s or even Coran’s voice rang out a little muffled in the distance. The voice recorders on the ship really needed a tune up, he could have sworn whoever it was yelled something about a plant or maybe a fan? Confusing. Hunk abruptly straightened up and seemed to brighten up.

 _‘Oh yeah! I forgot about Plance, I gotta go water him after this, oops. Also, Pidge figured out how to reverse engineer that tracking chip we found? So whenever you get back we’re going to head out to take a look into following it back where it came from. It’s…probably? Not dangerous but Coran’s absolutely losing his mind over all of this. He wigged out on me yesterday because I walked into the training deck with my shirt t ag out and he was convinced it was another tracking chip._ ’  Oh man, Lance stifled a snort at that one imagining Coran shrieking and flailing and bouncing all over the place in panic _. ‘Also, when you come back can you bring some of your mom’s cookies? I miss cookies… Uh. I don’t. Actually know what I was supposed to say in this? So. Bye dude.’_

The next few had a few pictures attached, a couple of map locations depicting areas they’d scoped out while spreading the word that the Galrans were officially Closed For Business. A couple of the pictures had that damned plant in the corner again, like it was mocking him or something. He had to go for a short walk after that thought, jealousy over a plant was probably a sign he was spending too much time in the dark with a video screen.

He sent back a quick video, wishing them all well with his usual charm and sent a few selfies with various family members. Hunk had been a staple at their house during Lance’s earlier school years- his family lived slightly too far away to visit for the less important holidays, so Lance had cheerfully dragged him along. Partially as a human shield against the endless questions, partially to alleviate Hunk’s ever so slightly sad mood. His youngest siblings in particular loved the big guy and absolutely lost their minds in excitement at the prospect of sending him a video message.

He didn’t entirely know what they said between the loud talking over each other and half formed sentences, but he definitely heard the words ‘Lance has a crush’ and was very quick to grab his phone back and end the video after that. Yikes.

 

\--

 

Shiro’s videos were always short and cut to the point, with a little bit of classic goofy Shiro peeking in under the seams. They’d all been a little worried about the guy after the final battle, the Galran tech in his system and all the damage psychologically done to him had left a deep gouge they weren’t sure they could fill in for a while. He’d nearly been forced to turn on them too, some part of his coding rewriting itself and deleting stacks of information in the process. But, Lance reminded himself with a shake of his head, Shiro was better now and everything was fine. Even the dark circles and stress lines under the guy’s eyes seemed fainter, less urgent. It was nice to see.

 _‘Lance, I hope you’re enjoying your family time down there. Allura told me that you’re having a bit of difficulty with arranging a ride back up? I know we had to keep Blue here for safety, but I honestly would feel better if you had her somewhere close by. You never know what might happen, being prepared doesn’t hurt._ ’ Lance had to roll his eyes at that one, with a little whisper of ‘ _yes dad’_ under his breath. His youngest cousin, plastered to his side, giggled just on the side of too loud directly into his ear and ran off. Living with a big family used to be so normal, but he’d spent months nearly isolated beyond a scraggily group of rag tag heroes. No kids allowed. Being around a bunch of eight year olds was exhausting in a strangely nice way.

“Lance said Dad!” “Lance is so funny!” “Lance! Lance!”

He was grateful for the admiration, but he might have to scratch the ‘nice’ part.

“Yeah, yeah, Lance is so great he’s going to go somewhere else that’s not here and continue listening to his very important video! That’s how great Lance is!” He stuck his tongue out for good measure, watching as his cousin laughed uproariously and scuttled off. Lance continued the video after pointedly waving his phone at the remaining family members and stepping into the bathroom with a dramatic door click. He loved his family fiercely but _come on._

_‘Anyways, I talked to Allura and Coran, and they’re willing to extend your trip to a month like you asked. Well, willing in the sense that Allura’s eyebrow twitched so intensely I thought she was going to explode, but she agreed there wasn’t anything pressing going on up here. Your mother must have uh. Really explained things to her, huh?’_

That was a monumental understatement.

 _‘We’re still on the look out for straggling survivors, the numbers are steadily increasing everyday which is a great sign. I wanted to thank you for your hard work, and for. Well. Saving my life. You are a hero Lance, and you deserve a nice long heroes vacation so, I hope you enjoy it fully and stay safe down there. Meanwhile, I have a plant to water.’_ He smiled then, the holovid depicting the eye crinkles in blurred detail but Lance knew they were as crunchy and friendly as ever.

 “You’re going soft, old man,” he whispered a little tearfully. Shiro was like, what. Seven or eight years older than him and Hunk? Ancient, practically.

It was great news nonetheless to hear that people were turning up more and more, that the Galra hadn’t actually taken out most of the galaxy like they’d planned, that Voltron had helped, tremendously even, and—

“Lance! Ay, idiota! Some of us need to pee!”

Right, bathroom.

_‘Hey Shiro! Great to hear from you, I only snagged a few minutes of quiet down here so I’ll make this quick- I know you’re all probably desperate to hear from me but alas. I’m glad to hear people are alright, make sure they make my statue bigger than Keith’s alright? Utmost importance. Also, make his mullet a focal point. It’s important that the universe knows how much he looks like a douc- I mean. How…. Heroic… he is. Yes, that.’_

His mother banged on the bathroom wall more insistently and he winced. 

 _‘Welp, the public needs me. I’ll send you all more details about my amazing family adventures soon, try not to miss me too much up there, hey? Lance out.’_ He threw in an extra wink and ended the video just in time to catch the Spanish exclamation chalk full of colourful insults thrown his way.

 

\--

 

 _‘Hello, Lance. This is, awkward. I know you’re recording videos too but I’m aware we can’t actually enter a call here from the ship without all kinds of interference, and since the lack of flow basically renders this exercise null and void to have only a one-way stream, I’m not too sure what the point of this is but.’_ Pidge shrugged, fiddling away with some assortment of electronics just out of sight from the screen. _‘Allura insisted and I don’t really feel like running extra laps at practice so, oh well.’_

 Lance was a little worried about the idea of video calls if he were to be honest, grateful that he could escape that possibility entirely due to ‘bad wifi’. He knew his older siblings would do everything in their power to snoop if they could, _nosey assholes_ , so the quick videos were all he was really able to manage. Currently he was only avoiding their grubby fingers by holing up in his room and watching videos at 2AM. But, tomorrow was Christmas and most likely he was going to get tackled at full speed by a mob of eight year olds in a few hours, so there were consequences to his genius. Ho, ho, ho his ass.

They’d kind of forgotten Christmas in space, now that he thought about it. He wondered if he could somehow transport ugly sweaters to all of them. Allura in an itchy, hideous Rudolph sweater would be present enough, most likely. She’d probably put it on just to encourage the positive atmosphere and Coran would follow suit, getting way into it. The two of them were always endlessly curious about human cultures and whatnot. It was kind of heartwarming. He kind of missed all of Team Voltron and their shenanigans, he wished they could celebrate Christmas all together.

_‘Also, I think the rest of the team forgot to mention this in their previous videos but we’ve replaced you.’_

Never mind that thought, he hoped they accidentally got caught in the gravitational pull of a particularly large, rude assed star.

“What?!”

 Which, in hindsight, yelling loudly in rightful indignation at 2AM was probably a terrible, very bad idea. And he definitely deserved the verbal assault thrown in his direction through the wall, oops.

‘ _Meet Plance, the newest blue paladin.’_ Pidge held up that god damned plant to the camera, now with a wonderfully terrible picture Hunk had caught of him, mid-burp, taped to the pot. _‘He’s just like you but improved. Sitting around all day, doing nothing… Except Plance actually, yanno, creates oxygen instead of just using it all while talking about completely made up ‘great achievements’. Plus, Plance has not once yet tried and failed to hit on the princess which I personally think is a grand improvement.’_

Well, this certainly was bringing a brand new light to the term ‘green with envy’ that’s for sure. They were all definitely getting coal for Christmas. He’d made up his mind, he was going to mail them all coal individually somehow. Or else throw it to them from here.

 _‘Unrelated Plance news, the latest video your siblings sent made Hunk almost tear up, as I’m sure he probably has told you._ ’ Hunk of course had made sure to immediately record and send a teary eyed ‘thank you/I miss you and your cooking/I’m definitely attempting to hug you all from here but there are limitations to my physical form that are impeding my efforts’ type video that Lance had only skipped through and summarized for his family. The guy would just have to tell them all next time he came to visit, Lance wouldn’t be caught dead expressing genuine sentiment with his teenaged cousins and uncles nearby, no thank you. _‘He cooked an amazing celebratory, emotional release of somekind, dinner the other night and my stomach hasn’t been such a concerning mix of full and pleased since… I’m not actually sure how long. So thank you for that. Also, Hunk misses you so get back up here soon. Anyways I have to go water Plance and we’re all going to watch a movie with him, so have fun. Bye.’_

Pidge speak for ‘I also miss you but sentiments make me uncomfortable and I’m resolutely ignoring any indication of emotion’. Lance understood that thought, even though he fell asleep immediately after dreaming of different ways to ninja stealth attack a super dumb potted plant that was stealing his friends. The dream may or may not have ended with Keith dramatically confessing his love for Plance and Lance having to duel the shitty excuse for a replacement while it toted an evil henchmen style mustache, and even more so it might have involved riding off into the sunset with said dramatic paladin. But Lance would admit that only over his dead body or an excess of bad tequila shots, whichever came first.

He really needed to stop hanging out around his youngest relatives, their weird fairy tail books were getting to him in the worst ways.

Lance was vaguely concerned that the lack of Keith videos were making him miss the guy, that would be horrible and unspeakable.

 

\--

 

Christmas had been, for lack of a better, explicative filled word, nice. It kept surprising Lance, waking up without alarm bells or pale grey metal walls. The screaming children and flying chubby limbs weren’t much better but, different at least. Everything was so calm here, he’d once thought of home as hectic and chaotic and far too claustrophobic but… It was nice. Nice to have so many faces and helping hands and boring non-mission critical conversations about the weather and gardening and going to the store and so on.

There was something so average and magical about holding a steaming cup of hot chocolate in the bleary eyed hours of the morning, and gathering around a shitty plastic tree to share happiness and excitement for a few hours. He’d missed it, he realized.

By the wobbly quality to his mother’s tightly pressed lips, she had too.

His parents had given him the hoverboard he’d been begging for back at the academy, kind of adorable now but cool nonetheless, and a ‘safety kit’ full of convenience store travelling gear like ‘spray on adhesives’. Again, kind of adorable considering the massive amounts of alien tech floating in their castle fortress. He’d been touched anyways, of course.

Due to all of his travelling, he hadn’t been able to buy anyone presents (there wasn’t much space for tourist attractions or souvenirs in between nearly being vaporized, shockingly), but they’d all hugged him anyways and said it was present enough. Seventeen different pairs of arms squeezing him far too tight wasn’t really his idea of a good time but he’d stomach it for his dumb family.

He wondered vaguely, how Pidge was doing. They’d sent their brother and father home, to heal and recoup and be safe, but Pidge was probably spending their first Christmas away from home. Lance didn’t know how he’d have dealt with it.  Probably by making jokes. Yeah, that sounded about right.

Later, he’d send a care package for all of Team Voltron; hot cocoa powder, cheesy Santa hats, maybe even a wreath? Definitely a string of lights, god knows they could use the colour in the lines walls of monotony up there. Maybe he’d get his mother to make them some of her cookies too, or some of her other dessert specials.

A little taste of Earth up there in the void of space.

He also made sure to record an extra video for them all, and received a terrible filter filled selfie of the gang with Plance dead center wearing sunglasses and a string of lights. The worst present, ever.

Though he’d never admit it, he was kind of weirdly relieved to see Keith in the picture also. Looking uncomfortable and stupid beside Allura’s brightly grinning face, with an absolutely hilarious Rudolph nose firmly planted on his face. Lance saved the picture immediately, telling himself it was purely for blackmail purposes and nothing else.

 _‘Lance! The paladins have been telling me all about how today is a special Earth holiday, Crisp Moss or something of the like? We have something similar on Altea, a day of family and gift giving, except of course, ours involved a ceremonial travel out into the caves to banish the great beast that lurks within, but very similar nonetheless. I realized that I hadn’t sent you a video myself yet, and I wanted to wish you and your….mother… a very happy day! I also hope that you’ve been keeping up with your training down there, but I, um, understand if you’ve been preoccupied. Family is very important and I am truly glad you are spending time with yours.’_ If Lance had any questions about the honesty of her words, the pure unadulterated sparkle in her eyes would have banished them immediately. Sometimes he forgot how fiercely Allura loved her father, he felt an intense wave of sorrow for the princess suddenly, realizing outside of Coran she had no one left in the universe to celebrate her people’s holiday.

 _‘Hey Allura, uh, this isn’t usually my thing I realize and don’t you dare let Keith or Pidge see this- I am trusting you entirely with my very hefty and weighty reputation at the moment, it’s very important and fragile- but, uh. I wanted to say that…. Well… when I get back up there, we can all celebrate your day too huh? With Coran and everyone. We’ll make it special. Missing family during holidays can be really tough and, well, I don’t want you to think you don’t have a family I guess? I mean, unless you don’t think of us that way which, it’s fine. I mean. It’s not fine but it’s. Yeah I’m gunna just quit while I’m ahead here.’_ He smiled anxiously and turned the video off, contemplating deleting it. Or somehow taking the file out and eating it, then burning the evidence.

But, Allura had looked so sad and lonely for a split second in her video, so forlorn and wistful he just couldn’t bring himself to do it and resignedly sent the damning evidence off to her.

He hoped Plance would be there to make sure her and Coran were alright.

 

\--

 

 

Speaking of Coran, Lance really needed to remember to wear headphones when the excitable man’s videos popped up in his inbox; the guy liked to yell. And yell he did. About anything and everything, on and on, never losing momentum for so much as a split second. Honestly it was kind of impressive how seriously he took the whole ‘diary’ project.

If it weren’t for the ear splitting headache he ended up with after every video, even with the volume at the lowest setting, he’d almost appreciate them. Almost.

 _‘LANCE! Did I ever tell you about the time that I went fishing on the twelfth Altean moon? Well, I guess it’s not entirely fishing more like dragon hunting with very large polls. And we don’t so much catch the dragons as we do run away from them screaming like wee little children.’_ He paused to wipe a tear from his eye, a fond look filled his features as he looked somewhere off screen. _‘Well, anyways it’s a fantastic story, there were four of us and we had these extremely large sticks because all the polls were missing, strangely and—‘_ Pidge suddenly appeared in the video feed, entering in through a door behind in full battle gear, an urgency filling the static as distant alarms shrieked down the hall.

 _‘Oh dear, it appears I’ve missed my queue.’_ Coran stated blandly, and Pidge gestured exasperatedly in the background yelling something indistinguishable. Lance could hear the frustrated sarcasm even through the haze of cacophonous noise. The intensity of the situation hit Coran abruptly, his eyes widening in an almost comical way as a strangled goose squawk escaped him _. ‘I’ve missed my queue! G’bye Plance, I’ll talk to you later! Er, Lance, later talk! Er… you know what I mean!’_

The feed cut out as Coran flailed off into the distance, worried and frantic squeaks trailing along with him. Lance shook his head in exasperation and only very slightly, the smallest amount imaginable, concern. First, over the fact Coran had most certainly referred to him as Plance and secondly…

Voltron couldn’t form without him, he hoped they wouldn’t need him and blue on whatever ‘queue’ they were rushing towards. He realized of course that not every mission was a Voltron one, but hey, he was a vital piece to the whole ‘hero’ puzzle. So sue him if he worried about their capability without him, they were all probably a disaster without his calm and level head.

_‘Wow, I’m sure glad we work so well together without you, Lance! Shiro sure can keep the team together with his calm and level head!’_

Lance jumped in his desk seat, forgetting that the videos were set to autoplay, and covered his totally macho and completely reasonable shriek of surprise with a disgruntled frown.

 _‘There was a minor incident involving the distress beacon we were approaching on the planet Terok, the inhabitants didn’t bother to warn us about the massive ring of asteroids surrounding their planet, or the near constant volcanic eruptions on the surface. I was meant to be at the deck to help with the landing, but…. Well. Anyways! Not much more than a duck with water on it’s back! We secured a landing point and met with the civilians and sorted all the hoopla out in less than a few ticks. Really, it’s like we aren’t even missing a vital piece of Voltron at all.’_ He said the words with a smile that was only a tad wobbly, but Lance noticed. It made a lopsided, fond smile tug at his lips in response. Ah, Coran. Still with the tragic misuse of Earth sayings, and the blunt but genuine half insults.

He missed the guy, honestly.

 _‘Keith’s been oddly sullen the past few weeks. Well, sullener. I caught him in the training room the other day throwing insults at poor Plance! Really, who would think of such a terrible and cruel thing. I thought it might be the solar moon sickness, we used to get that back on Altea, when the third moon had looped behind our second Sun. Gave people quite the tummy ache! But he scarfed down his late evening food sustenance like nothing, so I’m guessing he’s just –‘_ Coran blinked suddenly, staring at the camera as if he’d lost himself for a split tick.

_‘Uh, well! I’d better get back to Allura, navigation systems to navigate and all that! Bye Lance!’_

Lance felt his brows furrow, he’s just what? And what was this about verbally assaulting poor, defenseless, plant Lance? Of course Keith would ruin their bonding moment by being a huge, oblivious ass. He just couldn’t keep his hatred of Lance out of this, huh? So much for ‘team spirit’, the guy was probably just looking to stir up a fight with any version of Lance he could get his hands on. Especially since this version of replacement Lance was a potted plant that couldn’t argue back. He bet Keith probably felt like he was real clever, finally able to get the upper hand on him.

How dare he, honestly. Plance had done nothing wrong, ever, in his short, green life.  

He opened up their group chat, fueled by righteous fury. Or at least as righteous as he could possibly feel at 2:34 AM on a Tuesday, surrounded by snoring relatives.

_‘You guys all better be taking excellent care of Plant me or I’m gunna be PISSED. Lookin at u KEITH.’_

Forget jealousy, forget replacing him on the team, he needed Keith to be wrong god dammit. This was about _winning_.

Of course, he hadn’t really expected the almost instantaneous reply, or that it would be from Keith of all people. And he most definitely hadn’t been expecting the attached image of Keith smooching the potted plant with Lance’s selfie strewn across it.

 _‘What the hell Keith you cant just kiss plant me’_ he texted back, ignoring the way his face burned. He was _angry_ , obviously. Just anger, nothing else. Righteous fury filled Keith hating anger.

‘ _Well it’s not like I can kiss real you’_ Keith immediately sniped back. Except- oh. _Oh._

Well, shit. That was new.

He stared unbelieving at the phone for a solid twenty minutes, unblinking and strangely warm before collapsing face first into his pillow. He definitely resisted the urge to scream into the fabric like a pre-teen who’d just been asked out by their crush. He definitely didn’t fall asleep with a shocked, goofy grin plastered across his face. He definitely did not immediately count the days until his return trip and imagine the embarrassed, gently constipated look Keith would probably be stuck with for the next two weeks.

That would be dumb, and probably sound a little too much like romance.

And being in a concerning love triangle with a plant would be mildly disconcerting at best.


End file.
